Oak Park hopeful of bouncing away in second half of EDFL season after 0-5 start to the year

TWO wins from its last three outings has Oak Park confident it can post some better results in the second half of the Essendon District Football League Division 1 season.

Oak Park’s Thomas McIntosh tries to break clear of Hadfield’s Steven Angus on Saturday. Photo: Angie Basdekis

THE last two years have been far from smooth sailing for Oak Park.

Winless throughout 2013, the Kangaroos were demoted from the Essendon District Football League Premier Division to Division 1 for this season.

The opening round saw a 75-point loss to West Coburg and four more defeats followed to make for a 0-5 start to the 2014 season.

But after scoring a breakthrough win over Hillside last month — ending a 27-game losing streak — it appears the wheel is finally starting to turn for the battling club.

The Kangaroos backed up the breakthrough win with a second four-point result in as many weeks last weekend over Craigieburn.

Looking to make it three straight wins, the side fell to Hadfield by seven points on Saturday.

But the signs are there that the Kangaroos are not far off the mark.

“The competition’s so even,” Oak Park coach Ben Chapman said.

“The problem is if you’re five percent off, you get beat.

“But we’re confident that if we dish up our best footy and we play 100 minutes of our best footy we’re in the game with an opportunity to win no matter who we’re playing. That’s probably a bit of confidence that we can take into every game.”

Highlighting the evenness of the competition, Oak Park is just one game clear of bottom-of-the-table Craigieburn and just two games astern of fourth-placed Westmeadows.

Despite the poor start to the season, finals is as much a possibility as relegation, but Chapman is not prepared to be talking about his side’s top-four chances just yet.

“We’re just trying to concentrate on trying to continue to improve and win games and the rest will take care of itself over the course of the year,” he said.

“I think it would be a little bit optimistic to look that far ahead.”